Get The Gavel<\/p>\n
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.<\/p>\n
According to arrest documents, Lopez told police<\/a> that \u201cit was just a stupid prank that was trending on social media.\u201d Lopez reportedly called it \u201ca joke.\u201d<\/a> But no one in the WNBA seems to be laughing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s super disrespectful,\u201d Elizabeth Williams of the Chicago Sky told reporters last week. \u201cI don\u2019t really get the point of it. It\u2019s really immature. Whoever is doing it needs to grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n The point, of course, is to demean women. Cheryl Reeve,<\/a> head coach of the Minnesota Lynx, called it \u201cthe latest version\u201d of what\u2019s \u201cbeen going on for centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe sexualization of women is what\u2019s used to hold women down. And this is no different. This is just its latest form, and we should write about it in that way,\u201d she told reporters last week. \u201cAnd these people that are doing this should be held accountable, and we\u2019re not the butt of the joke. They\u2019re the problem. And we need to take action.\u201d<\/p>\n Calling it out for exactly what it is \u2014 misogyny \u2014 is the most immediate way to take action. Writing it off as a dumb joke or a pathetic attempt at TikTok fame gives the perpetrators undeserved cover. <\/p>\n In an exclusive interview last week with USA Today, a group of crypto bros<\/a> claimed they started the stupid idea for publicity for their meme coin but disavowed any connection to the two men arrested. <\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t do this because like we dislike women\u2019s sports or, like, some of the narratives that are trending right now are ridiculous,\u201d the group\u2019s spokesman said.<\/p>\n But the group\u2019s so-called \u201cprank\u201d specifically targeted women\u2019s basketball with items shaped like a male sex organ. If that\u2019s not a dislike of women\u2019s sports, it certainly seems a clear sign of the group\u2019s disrespect for them.<\/p>\n It\u2019s probably not a coincidence that these sex-toy shenanigans are happening as the WNBA\u2019s prominence (but not player salaries<\/a>) is surging due to the popularity of players like the Indiana Fever\u2019s Caitlin Clark, Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx, and A\u2019ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces. <\/p>\n This clearly bothers some men, while others view it as barely worth noting. In a segment on \u201cCNN This Morning\u201d last week, Aaron Blake,<\/a> a CNN senior political reporter, lamented the sorry state of baseball\u2019s Minnesota Twins and said that the state hasn\u2019t \u201cwon a major championship since 1991,\u201d when the Twins won the World Series.<\/p>\n After a beat, Blake added, \u201cI should say, if you don\u2019t count the Minnesota Lynx. That\u2019s a key caveat here.\u201d But why would anyone not count the Lynx, who won WNBA championships in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017?<\/p>\n Oh, right. They\u2019re women.<\/p>\n Under the phony guise of protecting women\u2019s sports, President Trump has incessantly lambasted trans girls\u2019 and women\u2019s participation on female sports teams. Even his often incoherent press conference on Monday veered from fake justifications for turning Washington, D.C., into a federal police state<\/a> to ranting about \u201cmen playing in women\u2019s sports.\u201d<\/p>\n What Trump hasn\u2019t mentioned is the real issue of women athletes having sex toys hurled at them or what should happen to those accused of doing it. But one of his sons, Donald Jr., posted a meme<\/a> of his father, who was walking around the roof of the White House<\/a> last week, throwing a green sex toy at a group of women players on a basketball court.<\/p>\n When the president\u2019s son mocks women athletes and tries to squeeze an ugly laugh out of his father\u2019s unvarnished disdain for women, that emboldens the next idiot to do something dumb and potentially dangerous at a WNBA game. <\/p>\n Fans throwing things onto fields of play aren\u2019t new. But this isn\u2019t about a frenzied moment of competition. What\u2019s happening at WNBA games is sexual harassment and a manifestation of the hostile masculinity that exists to keep women in their place whenever they prove that their place is everywhere.<\/p>\n